Express View on Alwar caste violence: What politics and policy forget
It shows the endemic nature of a problem that politics and policy need to do more to address
Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar recorded the highest number of crimes against SCs. In the run-up to elections, as the prime minister speaks of the four castes that matter — the poor, women, youth and farmers — and the main Opposition party, Congress advocates for a nation-wide caste census, on Saturday, an eight-year-old Dalit boy got an early, unwarranted lesson in deeply ingrained inequality. On the premises of a government school in a village in Rajasthan’s Alwar, the Class IV student was assaulted for touching a bucket of water.
When confronted afterwards, the accused issued casteist slurs and a brazen declaration that he could not be brought to book for the incident. The impunity of the act points to a grim and sobering reality: That between the big ideas of social justice and big-ticket ameliorative schemes such as SHRESHTA (Scheme for Residential Education for Students in High Schools in Targeted Areas) and SHREYAS (Scholarships for Higher Education for Young Achievers Scheme), aimed to make classrooms more equal spaces, caste violence remains an everyday reality in the country.
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